Using release 5.3.2 HF4, I have created a dashboard with 4 gadgets. One is the Utility - Dimension Tree, the other three are varations of Metric - Performance Grid with different time ranges set in the preferences. When I was building the dashboard, I took the provided version of Metric - Performance Grid and created 3 of my own, one showing YTD values by month, one showing a YTD summary only, and one showing prior YTD summary.

All looked great when I saved the dashboard and by turning on broadcast to All, I'm able to use the Utility - Dimension Tree to filter the values on the other three gadgets. Works nicely.

My problem lies when I click on one of the gadgets and change a preference at the specific gadget level. For example, I want to change the time range of the monthly gadget to 2014 to see prior year. When I do that, all 3 gadgets change. I wolud like to see only the specific one change and the others remain as is.

If I turn off broadcast then I get that behavior, but also lose the functionality of the tree. Is this working as designed or a problem?

The behavior I'm looking for is for the dimension tree to function as a data filter, but also for each gadget's preferences to be customizable without impacting the other gadgets.

Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

In Dashboard Designer you can turn off broadcast at design time for any gadget.
That might suffice to give you what you need.
If you don't want a gadget to listen to broadcast, just leave it out.

If turning off broadcast is a choice you want your dashboard consumer to make at runtime, (as in "normally this gadget should listen to broadcasts, but right now I'm making some choices and wnat this gadget to stop listening") we have put in the capability to turn off broadcast on any chart at runtime. We did this post 5.3.2, in PMF 8.0 series. It only works for charts.

So in PMF 8.0 you can turn broadcast off for any chart gadget at runtime.
A "lightning bolt" button deactivates broadcast at runtime. If it's lit up the chart gadget is listening; if it's not lit up it's ignoring.

We plan to extend this so you can do this at runtime for grid gadgets and WebFOCUS content too; in PMF 8.0 it does this only for charts.

In the near future, also, there will be a whole new dashboard system in PMF 8.1.

It will be more fluidly responsive for mobile. It will allow more control over filtering and will allow easier creation of dashboards as presentations and as a runtime analytical and discovery tool as well.

But if you need that at-runtime control PMF 8 might be what you need for now.
If you don't need that, you can leave any gadget out of the listening loop by configuring Broadcast in Dashboard Designer.

Hope this helps.

Thank you Bob, as always, very informative. We have 8.0 loaded but have not yet discussed migration so we may not be that far away from the resolution you suggested.